To a Time Divided

Star Trek TOS Fanfiction
Title:	To a Time Divided
Author(s):	Mary Louise Dodge, Laura Scarsdale and Melinda Shreve
Date(s):	1976
Length:
Genre:	gen
Fandom:	Star Trek: The Original Series
External Links:
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To a Time Divided is a Star Trek: TOS story by Mary Louise Dodge, Laura Scarsdale and Melinda Shreve.

It was published in Delta Triad #3.

Part of a Series

• DT1: The Alphan Primaries
• DT2: Companion Four
• DT3: To a Time Divided
• DT4: Bivouac
• DT5: Rigel Five
• DT5: Mission and Men
• DTSI: Autumn's Echo

Summary

"A whiplash back to the year 1864 with Kirk, McCoy and Uhura being sent to Earth. Archaeologists have uncovered a library with a storehouse of knowledge that can only be opened with a key that happens to be hidden in Georgia, Terra."

Gallery of Art

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  John Martin, art from "To a Time Divided"

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  MEL/Martin, art from "To a Time Divided

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  John Martin, art from "To a Time Divided

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  MEL/Martin, art from "To a Time Divided," Uhura and the crystal rose

Reactions and Reviews

Exceptionally well-done version of the irresistable premise of putting the crew in the Civil War. Kirk, Uhura and McCoy plop into the Civil War in order to retrieve the key to a library left behind by a lost civilization, inadvertently dropped there in the 1700's by a "lost angel." McCoy poses as a Dr. Grayson, he and Kirk being brethren of a religious sect, and Uhura as their servant (not slave). McCoy struggles to resist saving people, and with the loss of his romantic visions of the old home place, while Uhura finds to her surprise that she is treated with suspicion by the house slaves, who are loyal to the family. All the while, they know that the people they are meeting will be killed that evening. The trinket is stolen at the cost of a boy's life, Kirk retrieves it with a bluff, then ends up shooting a man through bad aim and is shot in turn by the owner of the trinket. McCoy blows the whole cover by saving them both, then over Kirk's objections blurts the story to the Colonel, who is convinced that they are the rightful owners of the key, hands it over, and rides off to die at home with the rest of his family. Excellent characterization, plotting and dialogue.

'To a Time Divided' is a well-knit story of a time trip by Uhura, Kirk and McCoy back to Civil War Georgia in search of a 'key' to an alien library. The trip brings to each some realities and destroys some fantasies; there is a haunting thread of doom through the entire story that grips the reader.

'To a Time Divided' is the best piece of the zine, if only because the authors have enough historical background to make it really believable. It concerns a story of the Big E going back in time to earth's past around the Civil War period to recover a lost object. Good plotting and a fine flow of action....

Finally, someone has written that

fabled "Uhura and McCoy in a slave state" story that De said he wanted to do. Excellently written, although more could have been done with personal feeling (e.g., McCoy's true feelings when he viewed his ancestors' slave quarters).

Uhura's belief's on slavery were glossed over. It appeared that the trip was a big joke for her. But to have to conform to mores that are anti- your beliefs and anti- your own heritage (she is African and not American Black) and history, has an internal effect. You failed her as a black woman.

Did she have trepidations about returning to that time, fear, horror? Something? (I am not of American descent, and I KNOW HOW I WOULD FEEL in her place.') A good story otherwise.